The Pleated Cunning Hides
by Little Obsessions
Summary: "They forget that being human around her is a disadvantage. That it bears what is true, exposes carefully constructed facades underneath all of the polite lies they build to minimise the pain they inflict on each other." Seven reflects on the relationship between Janeway and Chakotay. Ultimately J/C.


**Author's note:** I like Seven, despite that ridiculous pairing, and I love the interaction with Janeway all the way through. I always wondered what she'd think initially because a) I am always going to treat the books as canon because they let my ship sail and b) she has really complex feelings, but they're not fleshed out. Any reviews and, as equally, constructive critiques are very welcome. If not, I'd just love if you enjoy it. J/C, from an unreliable narrator.

 **Disclaimer:** These characters don't belong to me, and nor does any reference or allusion to plots or idea that are recognisably Paramount's or CBS'. I have quoted two of Seven's lines, and they're not mine. I make no gain – monetary or otherwise - from writing these stories.

* * *

"If anything should take place behind closed doors, it was cruelty and betrayal."  
― **Edward St. Aubyn** , **Lost for Words**

"I don't know who to write to anymore... They've changed their souls, that's a way to be disloyal, to forget, to keep talking about something else."

― **Céline**

* * *

They forget she is Borg, that once upon a time she was so attuned to the collective that she knows the feelings, the colour, and the tenor of everything. She is an encyclopaedia of human interaction, though she didn't know how, at first, to explore those interactions herself.

But she sees everything clearly. She is a keen observer.

They forget that being human around her is a disadvantage. That it bears what is true, exposes carefully constructed facades underneath all of the polite lies they build to minimise the pain they inflict on each other.

And then when the pain comes together, a blistering chemical reaction, it seems all the worse for it being avoided in the first place.

The humans around her forget that Seven sees it all.

Sometimes she doesn't want it, she despises it, but it still happens. And sometimes, even, it hurts.

 _You are hurting me._

When she'd come aboard, she'd been so busy growing, learning, aching, that she hadn't been able to watch those around her as she should, as she had when she was Borg. She was picking her way through dangers, terrors, so inexplicable that she had forgotten to watch.

As time grew, extended out, she did too, and it was then she'd started observing, learning. She'd started to learn who those people around her truly were.

Captain Janeway had assisted her in her blunt, sometimes kind, sometimes incredibly complex way. Seven did not believe she herself, as a person deprived for so long, fully understood what it was to love, but she knew how deeply – and sometimes irrationally – Captain Janeway cared for her. At times it was comforting, but at other times it was difficult to fully grasp. What she did know, without equivocation, was that Captain Janeway loved her without reserve, though she was someone who reserved herself naturally.

Against what Seven knew of her nature, there was one human with whom Seven had witnessed Janeway be unreserved.

Commander Chakotay had not trusted her, Borg as she was, at first, and thereafter maintained a distance that she had rarely been offended, if not somewhat puzzled, by. He had warned Captain Janeway, vociferously, against offering her board upon the ship and access to the collective that was _Voyager_.

They had little in common – he was spiritual and creative, and Seven found those elements irrelevant and distracting - and he did not share himself as readily as the Captain did. He was more aloof, but always pleasant.

Sometimes, in the beginning, she felt he was only pleasant because the Captain wanted him to be.

He was terribly keen to do very much what the Captain wanted.

As they journeyed his attitude towards her had not shifted hugely, only a little, and not until very recently.

And even now, she is unsure that this is as much the case as it should be. He's warmer, they speak much more, and they have kissed.

Three kisses. Chaste, kind. Seven counts everything, because quantity seems to matter to those around her.

They are dating. And yet, it does not feel quite right.

 _Impassionate_. Now there's a word Seven doesn't like the feel of as it dances in the recesses of her mouth.

Though distant, he had been a safe harbour in a storm. He was calming for all of the crew, not least of all Captain Janeway, and he offered equilibrium when there was none. Seven had chosen him for her hologram just because of that: because he was safe and predictable.

And the Captain liked him, a recommendation Seven could not ignore.

When Seven thinks of it, she realises it was more than fondness.

And she knows it is more than fondness now.

When they see their Earth, _their_ home, on the viewscreen, he holds Seven's hand. But his eyes are on Captain Janeway, and Seven feels his palms heat up and hears his breathing hitch just a notch.

It's not the first time she's observed this reaction in him. In fact, in her first years aboard, she often observed their interactions and this hitching, heatening, as a direct result.

Sometimes, when it's at its very worst, his pupils dilate – darker and darker and consuming. She's looked out for it, when they are alone, but it is not forthcoming.

She never chose just to observe the Command team, but rather it was a by-product of being in their company so frequently. They were readily observable, and the observations she made were hardly difficult to categorise.

After all, she had millions of species as reference and, in this case, the markers of their connection were as similar as any of those millions. No matter the species, physical exploration of romantic notions is often fundamentally the same.

When that tactile, but brief moment is over, he goes to the ready room with the Captain after she simply says "Chakotay."

She doesn't even have to ask. There is no need for questions when the connection is so stable, unfaltering. When it is beyond what can be understood. Seven has assimilated millions, but she can't seem to assimilate this.

They emerge exactly two hours and three minutes later, and the redness of Captain Janeway's eyes are evidence of the fact that she's been crying. But they are tears of relief, Seven knows, or exhaustion. There is no sadness in her body.

And the smell of the Captain's perfume, indecipherable to ordinary humans in its traces, is heavy on Chakotay.

It might well be innocent, but Seven cannot be clear on that. She really cannot be clear on it at all.

Because the command team's relationship hasn't always been clear on that, she thinks.

And she knows.

She's witnessed it time and again: the hair's-breadth between their shoulders, the reticence of touch that seems erotic for all its chasteness, their heads tilted toward each other. She's felt Chakotay's heart race when they stand on the bridge and the Captain turns her pretty smile on him, or that very manipulative one. The way he lingers after briefings, and the way he says the Captain's given name even though no one should as it is in opposition of protocol.

 _Kathryn._

It curls around his tongue, whispers out from between willing lips. Gentle. Deliberate.

They all serve to show what is there, and what cannot be synthesised in any other relationship he chooses to pursue. Not even the one he's trying to make with Seven.

And, though it is less evident, it is in the Captain too. It's in the way her hips tip towards him and the way she laughs, deeply, honestly with him. It's in the way she can't help herself, despite how she wants to.

Seven had thought Chakotay was a safe bet, but now she's not completely sure.

They dock at DS 9, but they remain aboard Voyager until the Federation and Star Fleet can satisfy their initial curiosities.

He spends the rest of the evening with the Captain, and he eats with her, and they are together into the small hours of the morning.

He does not spend his first night in the Alpha Quadrant with Seven.

Seven sits in the chair in his quarters, but it doesn't feel like hers. She doesn't really belong here, and it's got nothing to do with Earth.

"We must speak Chakotay," she says, when he comes back to his quarters and they are finally alone.

It's 0300 hours, and he smells like expensive wine and coffee. And he smells like the Captain. And like something else. She can't identify it, but it is darkly human.

His eyes are glistening, with something like sadness and something like relief.

His body is relaxed, the large lines of his shoulders softened.

"Seven," he nods, then sets down on the couch across from her.

He does not touch her, though he never really does more than briefly, than fleetingly. They haven't gotten that far, though she'd hoped they would eventually. She thought that what was growing between, and in the now, might grow to the depths of love she was supposed to explore. She sees now they never would have been intimate, and that love could not bloom where it was not planted.

Perhaps, she amends, the may have. But the Admiral put that to bed…or maybe the Captain did.

She doesn't quite know that she believes the Admiral's motives now as much as she did and she certainly sees the Captain's.

It doesn't make it any easier to feel. In her breast there is a stinging, breathless sensation.

 _Betrayal_ : she recalls– noun, the act of treachery.

"I think we should terminate," she says simply, though it really does hurt.

She'd never though this kind of thing would hurt and even though she initiates the separation, she does it because she knows he was about to. She wants to match him, even beat him to it, to preserve something she doesn't understand. It's a strange sensation. But then the Captain had warned her that with humanity came love, and with love came pain. So had Chakotay.

Perhaps they know the concept quite intimately.

"I agree."

He doesn't elaborate.

"You comply," she says, "I expected as much. Your circumstances have changed."

She means 'your' in the plural sense, because that is obviously what Chakotay feels. His circumstances, and the circumstances of the woman he has waited for, have changed. And Seven can make a very human jump to imagine that this is what Captain Janeway has decided too.

Or maybe it's the smell.

She feels vomit swimming in the back of her throat.

Seven has always saw that between them, at least. There's a potency to their interactions that border on something dark. She'd known there was something more, but something that was to be kept at bay. They've reached the bay, she realises, they've come to the place where they have deigned – whether silently or otherwise – that it is acceptable to give into threads which bind them.

 _Earth_. She understands compulsion better than she ever did, and she understands Janeway better than she ever has.

"I would be deceiving you," he says softly, and there is a lingering note of shame in his voice.

"You do not care for me?"

"I care for you deeply," he stands, goes to the viewport, "But I do not love you."

"No," she answers, but she cannot look at him, she is too humiliated.

"I am in love-"

"Please, do not," she says gently, so gently she's surprised by herself.

He looks up, startled, and then curls his fingers together.

"You musn't hold her resp-"

"Please don't," she stands quickly.

"Seven…"

"I will recover, Commander," she says, "But right now I'd prefer isolation."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

She wonders where the 'we' is. Surely he speaks for the command team as equally as he did the day before, if not more so. It certainly appears to be the case. Or smells that way.

The pungent, envious aroma of something she has been denied washes over her again. It's something she's seen, listened to, but never smelled or tasted: them.

It takes all of her energy to get the words out of her mouth.

"Yes, but you did."

Once, a long time ago, she had told Janeway she would betray them. Betray Janeway. Betray the crew. Betray _Voyager_.

Once, a long time ago, she'd made a vow to Kathryn Janeway.

 _I will betray you._

She hadn't realised it would be the other way around.

* * *

"Time shall unfold what pleated cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides." - William Shakespeare, King Lear


End file.
